Up the ladder on Tuesday, quote still unwritten on Friday
The surveyor climbs up, counts slipped tiles, looks at the valley, checks the ridge bedding and takes forty photos. The notes go into a pocket book: rough lengths, pitch estimate, how many lifts of scaffold, whether the chimney needs repointing. Then there are three more surveys that afternoon.
The quote gets written in the evening, or at the weekend, or not until the customer rings to ask where it is. By then two other roofers have been out, and one of them sent something the same day. Your price might have been better. Nobody will know.
The bottleneck is the handover, not the pricing
Most roofing firms know their rates well. What slows the quote down is that the survey information is not in a form anyone else can use. The office cannot price from a pocket book it has not seen, and the photos are on one phone.
- Measurements are written in shorthand only the surveyor reads.
- Photos are not labelled by roof elevation or defect.
- Scaffold, skip and access needs are remembered, not recorded.
- Every quote is typed from scratch in a word processor template.
- Repair and re-roof options are written as separate documents.
What the slow quote is costing
Homeowners with a leak want an answer quickly, and many book whoever replies first. Slow quotes lose work you already paid to survey: the fuel, the surveyor's time, the hour on the roof. They also push the pricing work into evenings, which is when mistakes creep in, like a missing scaffold line or the wrong ridge length.
And because the quote sits with one person, holiday or illness stops quoting altogether.
The survey to quote flow we build
- A survey form on the surveyor's phone or tablet that follows your own checklist: roof covering, pitch, elevations, lengths, ridges, hips and valleys, flashings, chimneys, gutters, access and scaffold notes.
- Photos are taken inside the form, so each one is tagged to an elevation and a defect as it is captured.
- Measurements feed a pricing sheet built from your rates for labour, materials, scaffold and waste, so line items fill in as the survey is completed.
- Where you offer options, such as a repair, a part re-roof and a full re-roof, each is priced as a separate option on the same quote.
- An AI step turns the surveyor's short notes into a plain description of the work for the homeowner, which the surveyor reads and edits before sending.
- The quote is produced as a branded PDF with the tagged photos and sent from your system, with the date logged against the enquiry.
- Quotes not yet sent are shown on a list in the office, so nothing sits unnoticed.
| Captured on the roof | Used for |
|---|---|
| Lengths and areas by elevation | Material quantities and labour lines |
| Pitch and covering type | Choosing the right price build-up |
| Tagged defect photos | Showing the customer what was found |
| Access and scaffold notes | Scaffold and skip lines on the quote |
| Surveyor's short notes | Draft wording for the scope of work |
The surveyor stays in charge of the price. Nothing is sent without a person checking it.
What changes in the office
The quote can be drafted while the surveyor is driving to the next job, and checked in minutes rather than written from nothing. The office can pick up a survey someone else did. Photos arrive with the quote, which helps the homeowner understand why the valley needs replacing and not just patching.
You also get a record of every survey and quote by address, which matters later when the same customer rings back.
Does your quoting look like this?
- Quotes are usually written after hours.
- Only one person can price a survey.
- Customers ring to ask where their quote is.
- Survey photos stay on personal phones.
- You find out you lost a job only when the customer stops answering.